1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to search systems. In particular, the present invention relates to systems such as web-based search resources that respond to a request for information by presenting to a user an ordered list of likely search results that enable a user to reach a desired destination.
2. Description of Related Art
Businesses and organizations spend substantial resources on an annual basis in order to employ information systems that improve the availability and accessibility of information relevant to specific needs. Early information systems focused on database management schemes, where information was stored and classified using database management systems in order to obtain search results in response to specific database queries. Exemplary database management system vendors have included Oracle Corporation, IBM Informix®, Sybase®, Microsoft (e.g., Access and SQL Server) etc. Such database management systems, however, required some knowledge of the database query syntax, the organizational structure of the database, and knowledge of the available search keys for performing a database query. Hence, the earlier database management systems required some user expertise, rendering such systems less user friendly for less experienced users.
More recent search technologies have employed a web-based search model, where corporate directories can be searched using a web-based search model. For example, companies such as IBM, Google, and X1 have created context search engines which consolidate and present data based on user queries. For example, FIG. 1A is a diagram of a web page 10a displaying a search result 12a in response to a search query 14a utilizing search technology available from Google, Inc., for example at the website address “maps.google.com”. As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the search result 12a is displayed in the form of a location on a map, where the location is determined based on applying the search query 14a to a map database (illustrated on the web page 10a as originating from NAVTEQ™). The web page 10a includes additional search links 16a, 16b that enables a user to further refine the search, for example by entering a business type as a secondary query 14b in order to identify secondary search results 12b, illustrated in FIG. 1B, that are based on the context of the primary search results 12a. 
Consequently, a particularly advantageous feature of existing search technologies is the availability of applying context information that reorders priorities of information as usage patterns of the search results change. In addition, existing search technologies utilize information reputation, where user selection in response to a search query is sent as a feedback mechanism to the search engine to assist the search engine as identifying the user selection as a “better response” to the search query.
A fundamental deficiency of the above-described search technologies is that the search technology performs a search of stored data such as database records or static web objects. However, a fundamental component of business operations involves identifying and locating individuals who are able to solve a relevant business problem. Businesses invariably rely on individual persons (or groups of persons) who are recognized as being experts on a given business matter. For this reason businesses and other organizations establish management hierarchies and organizational structures in order to classify individual persons as being associated with or experts on a given business matter.
Consequently, software-based systems have been developed to improve the ability of businesses and other organizations to provide reliable techniques for storing the classification of individual persons relative to business matters. For example, software applications known as contact managers have been used in order to enable an individual to maintain records of individuals and their respective attributes. Contact manager programs, such as Microsoft® Office Outlook® from Microsoft Corp. and Palm® desktop from Palm Source, Inc., enable an individual user to maintain contact records of persons deemed relevant by the user (i.e., contacts), each record enabling the user to input and store the corresponding information related to the contact such as telephone number, address, e-mail, and notes related to the contact. The contact managers also include search capabilities, enabling the user to identify a contact based on entering a search query. In all cases, however, the contact manager applications require manual input of data for the contacts, with limited group sharing based on the system.
As apparent from the foregoing, however, if there is no explicit reference to the individual as being relevant to a given business problem (e.g., for example based on an organizational chart or in a contact manager), the ability to identify that individual as being essential to solving a given business problem may not be known without collective knowledge within the business. Hence, problem solving techniques within a business often may begin with announcements (e.g., mass e-mails) inquiring if anyone knows a person knowledgeable on the given business problem.
Another form of a contact manager is present in call center applications, where a business such as a customer support center integrates all of its operations into a single system which monitors calls, transactions, and integrates the transactions within a knowledge database. This variation of a database system, however, typically relies on a highly structured database, and therefore does not really apply itself to general business cases where an employee is attempting to find an expert for a given business issue.
Hence, existing technologies have concentrated either on user information (e.g., database or web searching), or user communications (e.g., identifying attributes of a contact or an incoming calling party at a call center).